Chapter 5 - The Trap In Row 8
I moved with the silent, fluid grace of a hunter who had cleared trenches in Kandahar and hunted traitorous lieutenants through the concrete alleys of South Chicago. Every passenger in the first three rows of economy was staring at me through their yellow masks, eyes wide with terror, frozen in place.
Douglas Martinez shrank against the window, pulling his knees up to his chest, terrified that I was coming for him. I ignored him completely.
I slipped through the curtain into the empty first-class galley, stepped to the rim of the open avionics hatch, and looked down into the dimly lit equipment bay.
Below, surrounded by miles of bundled fiber-optic wire, circuit breakers, and pneumatic ducts, two men were working under the glow of a red tactical headlamp. One was cutting into the main hydraulic manifold housing with an electric carbide saw; the other was attaching an explosive breaching charge to the skin of the lower fuselage.
They were making sure that even if the pilots survived the poison, the plane would disintegrate during approach.
I didn't give them a chance to turn around.
I dropped through the hatch like an executioner, landing both steel-toed boots directly onto the neck of the man with the saw. The impact snapped his collarbone with a sickening crack, driving his face into the metal floor grating. He went limp before his weapon could leave its holster.
The second man—a massive operative with a scarred jaw and Slavic tattoos crawling up his throat—whipped around with blinding speed, swinging a silenced 9mm pistol toward my forehead.
I deflected his gun arm outward with my left forearm, stepping inside his guard, and drove my carbon blade upward through his shoulder joint. He roared in agony, dropping the weapon as blood splattered across the white avionics racks.
He lunged forward, throwing his entire two-hundred-and-forty-pound frame against me, pinning me against the high-voltage circuit breakers. Sparks showered around us in blinding blue arcs as our bodies slammed into the delicate electronics.
"You're dead, Hayes!" he snarled in a thick, guttural accent, his thumbs digging into my windpipe. "Nikolai sent us! This plane doesn't land! Your little girl dies in the water with you!"
Hearing Norah’s name on a hitman’s tongue snapped whatever shred of civilian restraint I had maintained.
A cold, white-hot fury erupted in my chest.
I slammed my forehead directly into the bridge of his nose, shattering cartilage. He reeled backward, clutching his face, and I followed up with a brutal palm strike to his solar plexus, followed by a sweeping kick that sent his legs flying out from under him.
He crashed onto the metal floor. Before he could reach for the fallen pistol, I drove my boot heel down onto his wrist, crushing the bones, and kicked the gun far down the narrow service tunnel.
I knelt over him, my carbon blade resting a fraction of a millimeter above his carotid artery.
"Who else is on this plane?" I whispered, my voice dripping with pure venom. "Tell me now, or I will disconnect the cabin heat duct right here and let you freeze to death in this crawlspace while we descend."
The assassin spat blood onto my jacket, wheezing through cracked ribs. "Nobody... just us two. The charge... on the fuselage... it's set on an altimeter trigger... drops below five thousand feet... and it blows the tail off..."
I grabbed his tactical vest, pulled his head up, and slammed it against the steel bulkhead, knocking him unconscious.
I immediately crawled toward the aft bulkhead where the black rectangular explosive charge was mounted against the aluminum ribs of the fuselage. The digital display was glowing red: ARMED - 4,850 FT TRIGGER.
We were currently cruising at ten thousand feet. The moment I began the descent into Shannon airport, the barometric sensor would complete the circuit, detonating three pounds of military C4 and tearing the empennage apart.
I carefully inspected the wiring. Two wires led to the altimeter detonator, while a third was looped into a mercury tilt-switch. A classic dead-man circuit. If I pulled the box off the wall, it would blow instantly.
I pulled out my carbon blade, wedged the non-conductive ceramic edge beneath the primary battery lead, and held my breath.
One slip. One micro-spark. And two hundred and sixty passengers—including my precious daughter—would be vaporized in a flash of orange fire over the storm-tossed sea.
With a swift, surgical slice, I severed the ground wire.
The red LED blinked twice... and went dark.
I let out a long, ragged exhale, wiping blood and sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.
I grabbed the heavy zip-ties from the hitman's vest, bound both unconscious assassins securely to the heavy structural beams, picked up the dropped 9mm pistol, cleared the chamber, and tucked it into my waistband.
I climbed back up through the hatch into the first-class galley, pulling the cover shut behind me.
When I stepped back into the aisle of the main cabin, breathing hard, my shirt stained with blood and grime, the passengers gasped in horror.
Norah was watching me.
Her big brown eyes widened, but she didn't scream. She had seen me return from business meetings with bruised knuckles before. She knew her daddy was a protector, even if she didn't know the dark world he ruled.
"Daddy?" she asked quietly through her mask.
I forced a gentle, loving smile to my face, hiding my trembling hands behind my back.
May you like
"Everything is fine, sweetheart. Daddy just fixed the heater."
I turned to Jillian, who was trembling like a leaf against the bulkhead. "Keep this hatch secured. I'm going back into the cockpit. We have an approach to fly."
